South Africa’s poultry imports recovered markedly in August this year, but still showed the impact of the nine-week bird flu ban on chicken imports from Brazil.
The ban, from May to early July, affected imports from June, and might result in lower volumes into September. Brazil is the main source of South Africa’s poultry imports – predominantly offal products and mechanically deboned meat (MDM), which is used in the manufacture of processed meats such as polony.
Import volumes plunged from 29 000 tonnes in May to a 10-year low of 10 000 tonnes in July. Although volumes then doubled to 20 000 tonnes in August, this was still way below the monthly import totals earlier this year.
The temporary plunge is likely to keep 2025 volumes below those for the previous two years, when small increases in 2023 and 2024 ended a steady decline since imports peaked in 2018.
In 2018, South Arica’s poultry imports reached a high of 566 000 tonnes, with a landed value of R6.5 billion. By 2024, this had dropped to a still substantial 415 000 tonnes valued at R5.4 billion.
Editorial comment:
FairPlay notes that poultry importers have still not responded to our challenge for them to release the prices they charged for mechanically deboned meat (MDM) as the Brazil ban reduced import volumes earlier this year.
MDM is a paste used in the production of processed meats such as polony and viennas. Most of that comes from Brazil. During the nine-week bird flu ban on Brazil, from May to early July, Brazilian supplies were reduced, but import prices remained low.
While landed prices for Brazil’s MDM were around R10/kg, chicken importers told Business Day at the start of June that selling prices to local meat producers had risen from R13/kg to R31/kg. Import prices remained low as volumed dropped in June and July, FairPlay noted. What had importers charged then?
In September, in the FairPlay Bulletin and in Business Day, we challenged chicken importers to say whether MDM had continued to fetch R30/kg, or even R40/kg as was rumoured.
Does their silence mean they might have exploited a shortage, and put profits before people?
